It was really odd hearing that Mr. Carter would be out for the rest of the semester, he had never so much as taken time off during the school year in all the years that I have known him. He seemed fine just last week and now we are hearing this? Something seemed fishy. And typically, when someone is out on such short notice, we have to scramble to cover their classes until we can get a sub in, but Miriam was in and teaching in Mr. Carter's stead first thing Monday morning. All the students seemed enraptured with her right from the get-go, almost like a spell had been cast on them.

A few weeks in, I was walking by Mr. Carter's classroom, and I heard a very weird noise coming from within, almost like someone was speaking in tongues. When I doubled back and peeked in, all I saw was Miriam teaching the class about Shakespear. "That was odd" I thought, mind must have been playing tricks on me. I happened to mention it to Sofia when we were in the teacher's lounge and she said the same thing happened to her, she heard some weird chant-like sound coming from the classroom and when she took a look, everything appeared normal.

"You know, hearing you say that I don't think Miriam is who she says she is..." I mentioned as we finished up our coffees and where about to head to our next classes. I poured the rest of my coffee out in the sink and turned around to leave when I almost collided with Miriam, she was standing right behind me. "Oh, excuse me, didn't notice you were there."

"It's curious... I wonder why it doesn't work on you?" She said in a rather strange tone.

"Uh, what? I'm not sure I follow." I said, clearly confused by what she meant.

"Oh, nothing of importance at the moment." She said as she made a flowing gesture with her hand and turned around to leave.

Suddenly, I felt a strange pang in my stomach, it was like suddenly all my nerves activated at once and were teeming with energy but had nowhere to go. I started to feel dizzy, and my vision tunneled in, it was as if something was forcing the consciousness out of me. I began to stumble and as I could feel my body crumbling beneath me, I looked up to see Miriam looking back at me over her shoulder with a sinister smile.

Then, darkness.